CHAPTER X.
Everything went on well at Pümpelhagen that year. The harvest was plenteous, and the price of corn was high. Alick von Rambow saw a way opening before him of getting out of his difficulties; he did up his accounts over and over again, and saw clearly that if he sold the rape for so much, the sheep for so much, and the cattle for so much, that all this, with what he got for the wheat would be amply sufficient to pay off the last farthing of his debts. The devil himself must take part against him, if he failed to do so. He thought that the reason of his good fortune this year was that he himself was at Pümpelhagen, and was therefore able to look after things with his own eyes. The eye of the master is to a farm what the sun is to the world, everything ripens under it, and the tender blades of grass grow green under his footstep. So thinking, it was not long before Alick quite forgot that these blessings were the gift of God, and began to look upon them as the result of his own efforts, and even the high price of corn seemed to him to be a piece of well merited good fortune.
He rode his high horse without fear, and even when the farming and household expenses of the moment ran away with all the bank-notes with which David and Slus'uhr had provided him, and his small change began to run short, he congratulated himself on his excellent farming which gave him such unlimited credit in the neighbourhood, that Pomuchelskopp had offered to lend him various small sums from time to time. He had accepted loans from Pomuchelskopp without fear, in order to get rid of David for the time being, so that he paid David and Slus'uhr with Pomuchelskopp's money, and they paid it back to Pomuchelskopp, and he again lent it to Alick, thus the money was kept continually going round and round in a circle. It would altogether have been a very pleasant little arrangement, if Pomuchelskopp had not been obliged to take the trouble of removing the marks from the bills for fear of Alick's finding out that it was always his own money that he got back. It could not be helped however if Pomuchelskopp still wished to keep his plans for gaining the Pümpelhagen acres a profound secret from his victim, and indeed he enjoyed the sense of power which came of his rapid intimacy with Alick far too much to grudge the trouble he had to take.
Alick was also perfectly satisfied with the course events were taking, for he was always well supplied with money to ward off the attacks of the usurers, and at what seemed to him a very small price, for he never thought of adding up at the end of the year how much the total came to, and he was firmly convinced that his affairs were better attended to now that he lived at Pümpelhagen than they had ever been before. It was the old story over again. When a young squire who knows nothing whatever of farming wants to make improvements, he always begins with the live-stock. And why is this the case? Well, I imagine it is because young gentlemen think this subject the easiest to understand. All that they have to do is to buy a new bull, and a ram or two of some new fashioned breed, and then, as the laws of cattle-breeding are still sufficiently indefinite to allow of much theorising, even the stupidest of them has no difficulty in speaking learnedly on the subject. They have only to pass over as of no account, all that the old men around them have learnt from the experience of years, and they do not find it hard to do; after that these youthful farmers are as worthy of being listened to, in their own opinion at least, as those whose hair has grown grey at the work.
There was a dairy of Breitenburg cows at Pümpelhagen, which the old squire had bought by Hawermann's advice and with Hawermann's assistance. This dairy must now be improved, so Alick went to Sommersdorf in Pommerania where there was a great cattle-show, and bought a splendid Ayrshire bull by Pomuchelskopp's advice. He bought this bull because he was handsome, because he came from Scotland, and because he was something new. There was a flock of Negretti sheep which produced a great quantity of wool, and were of a high market-value, but as Pomuchelskopp said he had got four and sixpence a stone more for his wool, the young squire was induced to buy a couple of Electoral rams from his worthy neighbour, for which he was obliged to pay ready money. It never occurred to Alick to set the sum he made by the large quantity of wool given by his sheep, against that gained by Pomuchelskopp for the smaller quantity of finer wool; had he done so he might have found the result to be in his own favour, but unfortunately for him he had enough to do adding up other sums on a different subject.
Hawermann defended himself from the new arrangements as well as he could, but his efforts were vain. His master looked upon him as an old man who clung to the traditions of his youth too vehemently to be able to advance with the age, and when the old man's reasons against the introduction of some new method were unanswerable, he always said impatiently: "Hang it! Let's try how it does at all events," and it never entered his head to remember that experiments run away with more money than anything else. The bailiff could do nothing, and only thanked God that the squire had not yet really thought of breeding thorough-bred horses, though he spoke of doing it every now and then. Mrs. von Rambow could do nothing, for she was not aware of the way in which her husband put off the evil day of paying his debts, and in ordinary matters she was obliged to be contented with the result of what she saw, and that was that Alick was apparently satisfied with the course of events, and was looking forward to a golden future.
The Pomuchelskopps at Gürlitz manor were also happy; I do not mean that they enjoyed great domestic happiness, they were too modest to expect such a thing? but they were satisfied with their financial condition, and looked forward to still greater wealth coming to them in a short time, for the boundary between Pümpelhagen and Gürlitz was growing more shadowy every day. Pomuchelskopp's only difficulty after any new business-transaction with Alick was to keep his Henny quiet, for in her ardour for possession she was anxious to cross the boundary, and seize upon Pümpelhagen without further delay.
There was great contentment in Joseph Nüssler's house, and much looking forward to a golden future of the ideal sort, such as poets mean when they try to describe the "golden glory of the dawn," not that they think the brilliance of gold an exact representation of that wonderful light in the eastern sky, but because they know nothing more beautiful, they so seldom get a glimpse of it. Godfrey gradually got rid of his long hair, and began to look upon the world with other eyes than before. He no longer used the mental blue spectacles they had provided him with at Erlangen or elsewhere, and much to Bräsig's delight he even went so far as to play at Boston, though it must be confessed that he did it very badly; on another occasion he had got on horse-back, and had managed to fall off without hurting himself, and he had appeared at Joseph Nüssler's Harvest Home. He did not dance, that is to say before all the rest, but he enjoyed a quiet turn with Lina in the next room, and at the end of the evening he sang "Vivallera!" clearly but wretchedly ill. And Rudolph? It is sufficient to repeat what Hilgendorf said to Bräsig about him: "He'll do, Bräsig. He's just such another youngster as I was myself; there's no tiring him; he's as strong as a horse. He has only to glance at a thing, and he knows how to do it at once, and it was just the same with me. And as for books? He never opens one! And that's like me again."--Mrs. Nüssler rejoiced in her children's happiness; and young Joseph and young Bolster sat quietly by the hour together, gazing straight before them, and saying nothing, they were thinking of the time when they would each have a new heir to their dignities, young Joseph in Rudolph, and young Bolster in young Bolster the seventh. Theirs could not be called a looking forward to a golden dawn, but to contented natures like Joseph and Bolster the evening-sky has likewise its golden light.
Every house in the parish had its share of happiness, each of them after its kind, but one house formed an exception to this rule, although it used to have its full share. In winter round the fire-side, and in summer under the great lime-tree, or in the arbour in the garden there always used to be a calm peaceful happiness, in which the child Louisa as she played about the old house and grounds, and little Mrs. Behrens, who ruled all things duster in hand, had had part, and also the good old clergyman, who had now done with all earthly things for ever. Peace had taken leave of the house, and had gone forth calmly to the place from whence she came, and during that time of illness, care and sorrow had taken up their abode there, deepening with the growing weakness of the good old man. He did not lie long in bed, and had no particular illness, so that Dr. Strump of Rahnstädt could not find amongst all the three thousand, seven hundred and seventy seven diseases of which he knew, one that suited the present case. Peace seemed to have laid her hand on the old man's head in blessing, and to have said to him: "I am going to leave thee, but only for a short time, I shall afterwards return to thy Regina. Thou needest me no more, because thou hast had me in thy heart during all the long years thou hast fought the good fight of faith. Now sleep softly, thou must needs be tired."
And he was tired, very tired. His wife had laid him on the sofa under the pictures, that he might look out at the window as much as he liked, Louisa had covered him comfortably with rugs and shawls, and then they had both left the room softly that he might rest undisturbed. Out of doors the first flakes of snow were falling slowly, slowly from the sky; it was as quiet and still outside as within his heart, and he felt as if the blessing of Christ were resting upon him. No one saw it, but his Regina was the first to find it out--he rose, and, pushing the large arm-chair up to the cupboard, opened the door, and sitting down, began to examine the treasures that he had kept as relics of the past. Some of them had belonged to his father, and some to his mother, they were all reminiscences of what he had loved.
This cupboard was the place where he had stowed away whatever reminded him of all the chief events of his life, and they had become relics the sight of which did him good when he was down-hearted. They were not preserved in crystal vessels or in embroidered cases, but were simply placed on the shelf, and kept there to be looked at whenever he wanted to see them. When he felt low and sad it did him good to take out these relics, and to live over again in thought the happy days of which they reminded him, and he never closed the cupboard-door without gaining strength and courage, or without thanking God silently for his many blessings. There lay the Bible his father had given him when he was a boy; the beautiful glass vase his old college-friend had sent him; the pocket-book his Regina had worked for him during their engagement; the shell which a sailor had sent him in token of his gratitude for having been shown the way to become a better man; the pieces of paper on which Louisa, Mina and Lina had written their Christmas and New Year's-day messages of affection, as also some of their earlier bits of handiwork; the withered myrtle wreath his wife had worn on her wedding-day; the large pictorial Bible with the silver-clasps that Hawermann had given him on his seventieth birthday, and the silver-mounted meerschaum that Bräsig had given him on the same occasion, and down below on the lowest shelf were three pairs of shoes, the shoes that Louisa, Regina and he had worn when they first entered the parsonage.
Old shoes are not beautiful in themselves, but the memories attached to these made them beautiful in his eyes, so he took them out of the cupboard, and laid them down by his side, and then placing his first Bible on his knee, he opened it at our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, and began to read. No one saw him, but that was not necessary, and his Regina knew it when it was all over. He grew very tired, and resting his head in the corner of the great chair fell asleep like a little child.
And so they found him when they came back. Mrs. Behrens seated herself on the arm of his chair, clasped him in her arms, closed his eyes, and then resting her head against his, wept silently. Louisa knelt at his feet, and laying her folded hands on his knee, looked with tearful eyes at the two quiet faces that were so dear to her. Then Mrs. Behrens rose, and folding down the leaf of the Bible, drew it softly out of her husband's hand, and Louisa also rose and threw her arms round her foster-mother's neck. They both wept long and passionately, till at last when it was growing dusk Mrs. Behrens replaced the shoes in the cupboard, saying as she did so: "I bless the day when we came to this house together," and while laying Louisa's little shoes beside them, she added: "and I bless the day when the child came to us." She then closed the cupboard-door.
The good old clergyman was buried three days later in the piece of ground he had long ago sought out for his last resting-place, and any one standing by the grave, which was lighted by the earliest rays of the morning-sun, might easily see into the parlour in the parsonage-house.
The people who had been at the funeral were all gone home, and Hawermann had also been obliged to go, but uncle Bräsig, who had spent the day at the parsonage helping his friends in every possible way, had announced his intention of remaining for the night. Seeing the two women standing arm in arm at the window buried in sad thought, he slipped quietly upstairs to his bed-room, and going to the window looked sorrowfully down into the church-yard, where the newly made grave showed distinctly against the white snow surrounding it. He thought of the good man who lay there, who had so often helped him with kindness and advice, and he swore to himself that he would be a faithful friend to Mrs. Behrens.--Down-stairs the two sad-hearted women were gazing at the same grave, and silently vowing to show each other all the love and tenderness that he who was gone from them had been wont to bestow. Little Mrs. Behrens thanked God and her husband for the comforter she had in her adopted daughter whom she held in her arms, and whose smooth hair she stroked, as she kissed her lovingly. Louisa prayed that God would bless the lessons she had learnt from her foster-father, and would give her strength to be a good and faithful daughter to the kind woman who had been as a mother to her. New-made graves may be likened to flower-beds in which the gardener puts his rarest and most beautiful plants; but alas, ill-weeds sometimes take root there also.
Two people were standing in one of the windows at Gürlitz manor on the same evening, and gazing out in the dusk, but not towards the church-yard and parsonage; no, they were looking covetously at the glebe-lands, and Pomuchelskopp said to his Henny that they were sure to fall into their hands soon, for he would be the first to propose to take a lease of them when the new clergyman came to the parish.--"Muchel," answered his wife, "the Pümpelhagen people will never stand that; they'll take very good care not to let the land slip through their fingers."--"Through their fingers did you say, Henny? Why, don't you know that their very fate is in my hands?"--"That's quite true as far as it goes, but perhaps a young clergyman may come who would like to farm his own glebe."--"Chuck, Chuck, you're not as clever as you used to be. We have to choose the new parson, and we'll choose a methodist. Those clergymen who are never to be seen without a Bible and hymn-book are the kind we want, for they have no time to farm."--"You ar'n't the only patron, remember. Pümpelhagen, Rexow, and Warnitz have votes as well as you."--"But, my Chick, don't you know that Warnitz and Rexow have no chance if they vote against Pümpelhagen. If the Pümpelhagen people and mine only vote together ....."--"Don't trust to your people, Kopp, they've no particular love for you. Mrs. Behrens will be against you, and all the villagers will do her bidding to a man."--"I shall get rid of her as soon as possible. She must leave the village at once. There's no house in the neighbourhood for a parson's widow to live in, and I'm not going to build one. No, no, Mrs. Behrens must go away, and the sooner the better in my opinion."--"What a fool you are, Kopp! Don't you know that she has a right to remain at the parsonage until the new clergyman is elected?" And with that Henny walked away.--"Chuck," Pomuchelskopp called after her, "I'll manage it, dear Chuck."
Many an evil weed flourished upon that quiet grave, and covetous hands were stretched out to seize the place left vacant by the good old man, but harm always comes sooner or later to him who with greedy joy uses the misfortunes of the widow and orphan for his own advantage, and makes capital for himself of his neighbour's necessities.